Life lessons from Giannis and Klopp

At the risk of sounding like an ex-jock*, I have to admit that I get a lot of inspiration and perspective for my day-to-day life from a handful of coaches and athletes.

* Having worked as a sportswriter for half a decade, I can counterbalance this by telling you that the vast majority of professional athletes, or at least baseball players, are absolutely and totally uninteresting in this regard. Really, you wouldn’t want to have a conversation about the weather with most of them.

So, yes, of course I love this now-viral clip from Giannis Antetokounpmo on whether his now-concluded season was a failure because he didn’t reach the NBA Finals again.

“Every year, you work toward something, towards a goal … it’s not a failure.” he says. “It’s steps to success - there’s always steps to it.”

This is such uncommon wisdom - not just for a basketball player in his 20s, but for anyone of any age working in any profession. It’s tempting to think that a white-collar corporate job is different. It is not the same zero-sum game as the NBA playoffs after all. But just because there isn’t a final score on ESPN after you close your laptop every night doesn’t mean we shouldn’t all be trying to embrace Giannis’ mentality.

I’d go perhaps a step farther. Success in the context of wins and losses are not any sort of valuable end goal at all. Getting better - taking those steps every day - is the only goal that really matters.

It reminded me of Liverpool coach Jurgen Klopp’s perspective on success and what he hopes to remember when he’s 90. It’s not lifting the cup in triumph. It’s all the details and small moments along the way.

The ultimate sports philosopher, of course, is John Wooden, whose book Wooden: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off the Court is one I turn to on an almost weekly basis.

Wooden tells us: “Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best you are capable of becoming.”

In other words, only you can really know if you’re successful because true success is derived from knowing you gave everything you had. No one else has the answers on this matter.